An Army Death, and a Family Left In the Dark

[FreedomAngel82]

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/16/AR2006011601394_pf.html

Snip: <'Friendly Fire' Incident In Iraq Remains Murky

By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 17, 2006; A01

Army Spec. Jesse Buryj was in the gun turret of a Humvee that night, guarding a traffic circle in Karbala, Iraq. The soldiers were on edge -- they had been warned about a car bomb -- so when a dump truck came barreling into the intersection, they opened fire from all sides. But the truck kept coming and crashed into Buryj's armored vehicle, sending the 21-year-old hurtling to the ground.

The next day, May 5, 2004, an Army officer notified Buryj's wife and parents in Canton, Ohio, that he had been killed in a crash early that morning. Several days later, as the family pressed for more information, a casualty assistance officer said that Buryj also had been shot. A death certificate that arrived in July listed a gunshot wound as the cause of death, but provided no information about the circumstances.

Peggy Buryj asked everyone she could to help find out the details of her son's last hours. She even asked President Bush when she and other grieving parents met with him during a campaign stop in hotly contested Ohio. He promised to look into it. Soon afterward, she said, his campaign called and asked her to appear in a commercial for him, but she declined. >

[Caoimhe]

1. He'll pimp her, but he won't answer her question

typical of *

[FreedomAngel82]

2. Sad

:(

[tanyev]

3. Here's some advice from the Pentagon:

Pentagon to families: Go ahead, laugh

When the stress of the war in Iraq becomes too severe, the Pentagon has a suggestion for military families: Learn how to laugh.
With help from the Pentagon's chief laughter instructor, families of National Guard members are learning to walk like a penguin, laugh like a lion and blurt "ha, ha, hee, hee and ho, ho."

No joke.

"I laugh every chance I get," says the instructor, retired Army colonel James "Scotty" Scott. "That's why I'm blessed to be at the Pentagon, where we definitely need a lot of laughter in our lives."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-01-12-pentagon-laughter_x.htm